This work discusses Buddhist ethics in the light of the social problems of globalisation. In particular, it searches for an answer to the question of what is Buddhist ethics like or what could be the social programme of Buddhism. In order to provide an answer to these questions and to place Buddhist ethics into a wider context, the work touches upon, to the extent needed, other Buddhist elements that form its mental “system” and from which its ethics actually originates. Next, a comparison of Buddhist ethics and the main Western ethics theories is presented; and lastly, a seventy-year-old movement, called engaged Buddhism, is presented, which is characterised by the reinterpretation of the main Buddhist teachings and a socially more engaged Buddhist way of life.
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